D&R Towpath

If you enjoy cycling all day on a hard-packed perfectly flat dirt road with NO cars or motorcycles, hardly any pedestrians and some beautiful scenery, you will enjoy the towpath along the D&R Canal.

In addition to biking the D&R Towpath, you can rent a canoe or kayak along the canal as you’ll see….

 

There are two branches to the canal: the feeder canal (22 miles) which goes along the Delaware River and the main canal (36 miles) which goes from Trenton to New Brunswick.

The canal was built to transport coal from Pa. to central New Jersey. From there, the coal was transported by railroad to NYC.  These photos are from the main canal.

The D&R Canal's last year of operation at a profit was 1892, but is stayed open through the 1932 shipping season. After the canal closed, the State of New Jersey took it over and rehabilitated it to serve as a water supply system - a purpose it still serves today.

I discovered the D&R Canal when a friend suggested that we bike from northern Jersey to Cape May. We did that ride for 7 years in a row over Labor Day. Someday I’ll put up some pictures.

You’d be amazed how beautiful New Jersey is when you get far enough away from the main roads.

The best part of the ride goes along Loch Carnegie (a lake) which was built by Andrew Carnegie around 1903 so that Princeton’s rowing team would not have to practice on what was then a very busy commercial canal.

According to Wikipedia, in 1903, a group of Princeton alumni began purchasing farmland that occupied areas of the projected basin. They, in turn, sold this land to Carnegie.

This was done in order to avoid arousing the suspicions of local residents, and to allow Carnegie to purchase the land for the lowest possible price. By 1905, the needed land was purchased and the work of clearing the area and constructing the bridges and dam began…..

The regattas hosted by Princeton on Lake Carnegie are awesome. I stumbled on one regatta last October and saw teams from 30 different universities on the 3-mile long lake. Not surprisingly, I suppose, Princeton won just about every race…

There is a sign along the towpath which was written by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, proud descendants of the Irishmen who dug this canal. I will read the sign to you as we go…

The History according to the Ancient Order of Hibernians....

The Delaware and Raritan Canal, often referred to as “the Big Ditch”, was constructed between the years 1831 and 1834 at a cost of almost $3,000,000 and the lives of many Irish immigrant laborers. The hand dug D&R Canal was 66 miles long. The Canal originally had 14 locks to raise and lower boat traffic.

There was a great shortage of laborers in America during the early 1800’s. Contractors went to Ireland and brought thousands of Irishmen to America to work.

The pay of $1.00 per day for canal workers was a large sum of money for men who had nothing in their own homeland. Although a number of canal workers were recruited locally, the vast majority were Irishmen brought from New York City by canal contractors.

Some of these Irish emigrants were about to pay their own passage to America. However the vast majority of them were unable to come up with the $12 steerage fee and the $15 provisions allowance.

Instead they chose to bind themselves for a period of work time often times six months to compensate the contractor for their passage provisions advance.

During the three years needed to complete the canal almost three thousand Irishmen worked on the various stages of the canal, cutting through the forests and farmlands of central New Jersey.

Most of the work was done by the brawn of the Irish unskilled laborers by hand with shovels, pick axes and wheelbarrows . Their pay was $1.00 for working from sunrise to sunset, six days a week.

The stronger men, who were able to remove tree stumps received an additional 25 cents for each stump. The more skilled Irish, the carpenters and stonemasons, built the locks, lockhouses, bridges, aqueducts and other buildings needed for canal operations.

They earned more money than the unskilled laborer.

Working conditions were appalling with men living in crowded tents, no sanitation, no medical facilities, poor food and long hours.

Most of the men wore rags tied around their feet while working in the canal pit.

In 1832-33 Asiatic cholera sickened and killed hundreds of the Irish laborers.

Many of them were buried in the fields where they died.

Graves of unknown Irishmen are located at Bulls Island, Ten Mile Run, the Griggstown Cemetery and along the canal banks.

No one can say for sure just how many Irish laborers died building this canal.

Those who survived the building of the Delaware & Raritan Canal moved across the country working on other canals and railroad construction. The Irish were greatly involved in our nation’s first great transportation systems.

May they live forever in God’s hands.

Signed, the Ancient Order of Hibernians (Somerset County)